The tree shook in the breeze and a walnut was knocked loose, sending it tumbling down to the hard concrete ground.
When the walnut struck the ground, it splintered apart; shards of shell scattered into the nearby grass, onto the suburban street with cars passing by.
From the shattered walnut, light and noise came rushing out. Strange sounds unfamiliar to the sleepy suburb filled the air; the sound of crowds bartering in the street in some long lost language, the trot of camels, the playing of unknown instruments. Unfolding from the walnut was an old city.
The city unfolded and grew, and the suburb was replaced with something new. Large bulbous spires loomed so high, taking over the concrete structures that came before. The scent of desert wind twined through the newly sandy streets as the music of the city took on the hue of an Ancient Arabian sort. Cars were gone and chariots came, pulling nobles with silks so bold and gold so gleaming; town hall was a palace with a Sultan overseeing.
No sign was there now of computer screens or digital stock; for a day it was beholden to the scolls weaved in rolls and ink and quill. A Fakir on a bed of nails where only a man cleaning a stormdrain was before, suddenly the library was immersed by dancing in colorful cloth where once only silence was before.
And so the city went about a normal day - of squabling citizens and merchants who squabbled more; of little thieves with their heads down because bread was no longer in their stores; of ceremony in the palace that the common folk could only guess at; of singers in the square making eyes at guards who eyed them back.
For a day and a night, the desert city layered on suburban landscape reigned, and as quick as it had come with the shattering of a walnut on the ground, it disappeared in a blink - lifted up in little pieces into the bright blue sky. No one seemed to notice as their limbs were taken from the ground, and soon the city was gone - no one else could say it was around.